Customer Snapshot

The Right Care, from the Right People, at the Right Time

Call

NHS 24

if you're too ill to wait.

A public service organization as part of the National Health Service of Scotland, NHS 24 provides unscheduled medical attention to all Scottish citizens, via telephone and online. When their doctor is unavailable, a patient or caregiver can call NHS 24 and receive personalized counsel for help when unwell.

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History

More than a decade of service

Started in 2001, NHS 24 is Scotland's national tele-health and tele-care organization. In recent years NHS 24 has continued to develop, provide, and facilitate an expanding range of multi-channel, patient centered, safe and effective services for patients, care-givers, and all Scottish citizens.

Business Model

How it works

NHS 24 consists of three regional centers and seven local centers. Trained and experienced nurses staff each center, and triage every call. The service then delivers appropriate care for the caller by providing healthcare advice on the phone, directing them to the local Accident & Emergency department, or making arrangements for an ambulance at their address.

1,600 full-time staff members answer about 1.5 million calls per year in centers throughout the country, serving a population of approximately five million people.

Success Strategy

Care at home, care in the community

NHS 24 was created with the vision to help people get the right care, from the right people, at the right time—with the focus that everyone receives care in their home or within their local community. One goal of NHS 24 is that by the year 2020, everyone in Scotland will be able to live longer healthier lives at home, or in a home-style setting.

The national healthcare system will include integrated health and social care, a focus on prevention, anticipation and supported self-management. When hospital treatment is required, and cannot be provided in a community setting, out-patient day case treatment will be the norm.

Care will be provided according to the highest standards of quality and safety, whatever the setting. The patient will always be at the center of all decisions.

The Challenge

Excellent service requires excellent technology

This innovative organization has always used information technology extensively to support the delivery of their services. Facing the expiration of current technology contracts, NHS 24 began the tendering process to purchase a completely new system. The agency sought to satisfy a wide range of requirements, from customer relationship management to the analysis of large amounts of data for decision making.

Enter SAP

Looking to the future, no half-way measures

NHS 24 selected SAP to provide the information technology necessary to support its frontline services to the citizens of Scotland. Working together with implementation partner Capgemini, they established an application landscape that included SAP Customer Relationship Management to help support the call centers, SAP Business Communications Management for telephone needs, SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA and SAP BusinessObjects solutions for speedy data analysis, and SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management by OpenText for knowledge management.

The SAP Experience

The big job

NHS 24 selected Capgemini to be their implementation partner because the company demonstrated a very strong understanding of the elements of procurement that are essential to NHS 24’s growth. They understood both what NHS 24 was trying to achieve, and mastered a clear understanding of the SAP product—thus, a good strategic fit for the agency.

NHS 24’s mission requires managing and making effective use of an enormous amount of data—resulting from hundreds of thousands of customer calls and patient records, as well as the knowledge assets within the organization.

Running Better

Healthcare administrators now have flexible applications that support new health services quickly with minimal updating. SAP enabled NHS 24 to achieve a single portal solution rather than a number of disparate and poorly integrated applications.

Benefits

Now NHS 24 has much faster query response times, and can use data rapidly to empower decision makers throughout the organization, and within the larger National Health Service.

But That’s Not All…

As part of their business case, NHS 24 discussed how they will realize significant cost savings by choosing SAP.

Lessons Learned

The big challenge needs the big solution

When NHS 24 chose SAP as their application they had to prepare a business case for the government in support of what would be a very large expense. They considered the fact that NHS 24 had to collect and manage a great deal of data. Customers come in and create patient records that must be organized. There is also a knowledge base that requires management.

SAP HANA was important for both its speed and flexibility. Despite the expense, NHS 24 anticipates tremendous cost savings because of the compression capability of SAP HANA.

Today

Looking ahead to more satisfying service

NHS 24 is excited about new opportunities to improve its delivery of health services, because SAP makes collecting, reporting, and using information a smooth and effective process.

Journey Ahead

A powerful tool to build a healthier Scotland

NHS 24 believes it has made a wise and forward-looking investment in leading-edge information technology. The agency was able to “buy what the future will be”. NHS 24 now has a tool in SAP HANA that gives it the power to integrate wide-ranging information into usable data forms, that will assist in every aspect of management and decision making, potentially even at the government level.